


Midgar '95

by sunshinestealer



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7475811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinestealer/pseuds/sunshinestealer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sephiroth was 13 years old in 1992, when his tactical and fighting abilities made him the star of Shinra's SOLDIER corps.</p><p>Three years later, with that behind him, he's a celebrity to die for, but terribly lonely. Until, of course, there are two unanticipated promotions straight up to First Class - Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley.</p><p>Together they navigate the 90s landscape of Midgar, wonder what it is to be a SOLDIER First Class, and struggle with their feelings for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midgar '95

“3… 2… 1…! Happy new year!”

The bells of the virtual clock tower pealed twelve times to a massive, crowing celebration from the enormous crowd stood below the Shinra Building, cheering a digital countdown on the Jumbotron. 

Midgar always had massive celebrations for this time of year, and Shinra were keen to exert their presence. Not just with the guards double-posted in every avenue and corner where an AVALANCHE terrorist or anti-government protestor could cause trouble — President Shinra himself insisted on coming down from his ivory tower for this celebration, dragging his cabinet (and young son) along with him.

One had to feel particularly bad for Mayor Domino, who had been trying to tap the microphone several times so he could make a speech about the further improvements that were to be made to the upper plate, and to congratulate the workers who had once again proved themselves worthy of working at Shinra for the greater good of the world. Everybody from the construction workers to the modern architects to the security forces. Even the girls who had been hired for this evening to simply hand out champagne, specially chosen from one of the world’s greatest vineyards near Costa Del Sol.

No thought was given to those suffering in the slums hundreds of feet below the Plate. 

Or working there on that night, for that matter, rather than enjoying a hedonistic celebration of one more year of Shinra dominance.

Sephiroth was rather pleased he had a work assignment tonight, in fact. He tolerated party atmospheres, and this winter season was the worst. It seemed like every single department within Shinra wanted him to partake in a costume ball or a holiday mixer, or even worse, a Secret Santa. He’d always had to politely decline, even reminding his secretary to never schedule any appointment with the media, to always stall for time and to take special precautions when dealing with the Turks.

The secretary had been a new addition to his life, but a blessed one. Ever since his prowess in the Wutai War, and his subsequent reveal as a public figure in Shinra’s military and a hero to the masses of new recruits, Sephiroth had endeavoured to keep a low profile. Much to the chagrin of the President, who had once clapped him jovially on the back and told him to enjoy the publicity.

“All of it, son. Whether it’s good or bad.”

He wondered if he really _could_ enjoy the fact that teenage girls across the planet were hanging posters of him up in their bedrooms, and teenage boys were becoming cannon fodder for a simple territorial squabble that was only being lengthened into a war by Godo Kisaragi’s refusal to negotiate. He’d almost been trained since infancy and had only made it into the elite corps by a combination of talent and hard work.How on earth were country boys supposed to even compare to him? He’d spoken with his therapist about his lack of friends before. They had both come to the realisation that his current peers were of the exact age to be killed by rookie mistakes in theatres of war, and thus, Sephiroth never befriended them. Not out of professionalism, but simply due to wanting to avoid grief if the unthinkable ever happened.

He sighed and took a brief look at his wristwatch under his new outfit. As a privilege for attaining their heights of success, SOLDIER First Class were allowed to wear whatever they liked. Sephiroth’s stylist had insisted on the black and silver co-ordinate, which made a welcome change from the regular uniform, to say the least. But down in the slums, Sephiroth’s coat was stiflingly warm, compared to the mild winter chill above the plate that generally necessitated wearing a jacket of some kind. Industrial fumes that would be harmlessly belched up into the sky above the plate were trapped down here, as was every other source of heat and other noxious smells. 

Below where he was awaiting his target, several vagrants were warming their hands in an oil drum. He was vaguely tempted to go down and wish them a happy new year before moving them along, but his mind was hyper-focused on the task at hand. Dispatching a young whelp from the slums who was insistent on drumming up trouble in the slums.

Reno Sinclair had been known to security on the streets of Midgar for three years, but the fourteen year old had already developed quite a reputation. He led gangs of his peers through the slums as if they owned the place, delivering violent beatings to other youngsters who were cutting their teeth in the information-broking business, kidnapping and holding younger siblings hostage, as well as stealing, arson, car-jacking and various other charges. The most benign of which involved riding trains to the upper plate without a ticket. Quite a bloody ledger for a boy who was only two years Sephiroth’s junior.

He had a variety of talents, ones that would certainly come in handy for Shinra. As Sephiroth researched his target in the weeks coming up to the arrest, reports from the security services had noted skills in jailbreaking gadgets, picking locks, reading and speaking in several languages, and a certain fascination in vehicular engineering. Not to mention his impressive athleticism, not only able to run from danger but to navigate any given environment as his own personal jungle gym with no injury. Reports also noticed a slight cowardice, with Reno primarily looking out for himself. A young mole had been placed in the gang, and had reported Reno cleverly manipulating his peers, apologising for abandoning them during a heist, and earning back their trust by showing a caring face and reminding them of the misery he had taken them out of. Then promising to do better by them on the next heist.

But now enough was enough. Shinra had spoken amongst themselves, and the Turks had delivered their dossier. Reno Sinclair was to be taken in for a primary evaluation, and given all the training, education and luxuries that were to be given to a higher class Shinra executive. No child from the slums could resist theallure of a better life above the plate, not after a week filled with consistent meals, and being given a luxurious apartment in the Shinra residential buildings. The assurance from Shinra that you had been headhunted or scouted for your special talents would have rung horribly untrue to Sephiroth, he imagined, were he from that background, but it worked most efficiently for the handful of slum kids Shinra recruited every year. On top of all that, it had the added advantage of making President Shinra look positively charitable, for all the problems that had cropped up when Shinra assumed control of the failing capital city decades ago.

The gang that Reno was in had a tendency to change their base of operations every few weeks. Either to avoid their elders, who really _would_ leave them with graver injuries than bloodied noses or injured pride, or to avoid security and social workers from sniffing around. Sephiroth hadn’t enjoyed the task of slipping around unseen, and much to his irritation, the gang seemed to break their typical patterns the moment they caught a whiff of somebody paying particular attention to them.

They were currently dwelling in one of the many parks Shinra had built in this area of the slums, as if to apologise for erecting the plate in the first place. Thin rays of sunlight broke through broken segments on the plate, breaking up the gloom a little. Sephiroth had often seen children standing in the rays, staring up at the sky which must have seemed so far away to them.

The park was located close by a disused church. The odd pilgrim would certainly come to give offerings to the altar, certainly, but there was no active priest to administer sermons. Worshipping the old gods had become rather gauche above the plate, and down here, where there was no hope, it had become a cynic’s dream. Well. Except for the one young girl, the Cetra, the sole escapee of Shinra’s lab experiments. She was currently ten years old, and quite why she hadn’t been dragged back kicking and screaming was rather confusing to him. Sephiroth’s own escape attempt as a child (done out of pure frustration after an blazing altercation with the Professor) had been met with intensified security around him for the next few years of his life. She simply had the Turks snooping around every now and again, an easy shift that didn’t require much to report, especially since she rarely deviated from her established routine.

Despite her gentle persona, the Cetra girl had somehow convinced the kids that the church was a sacred site, and should not be treated as their own personal playground. He amusedly wondered if she’d had to bloody a few faces to get them to stop climbing on the statue to Minerva.

Reno Sinclair was currently sat on top of the large plastic dinosaur that functioned as a slide. Just calmly looking up at the night sky through an opening in the plate. The children in his gang were milling around the park, acting as lookouts if they were still awake, or curled up against the play equipment if they were sleeping.

Sephiroth decided that now was the best time to approach. He had done enough observation and assessment. None of the children were in possession of illegal Materia or firebombs. Apprehending Reno ought to be a cinch, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him towards the Shinra security van on standby.

He climbed down from the building that had acted as his crow’s nest, and strode towards the park entrance. No use bothering with a disguise here. Let the world know that Sephiroth had been dispatched to deal with the underground’s most obnoxious pickpocket and juvenile information broker. 

He had hardly been expecting a welcome, but when the alarm was sounded, the children in the gang all whipped around and were stunned into silence by the mere _sight_ of Sephiroth. His fighting skills were unparalleled, and even at sixteen years old, he stood at an impressive height. Even Reno had skittered backwards on the top of the slide, just about ready to start running.

The moment Reno had leapt downwards into the sandbox and made to run for his life, Sephiroth was on him, pinning down one arm to the point where a single erratic move could break bone. 

The other children had wisely chosen to flee the scene, some even falling over themselves to avoid the wrath of Shinra’s greatest SOLDIER. Had he been a more vindictive person, Sephiroth would have leaned in to Reno’s ear and reminded him of just how disloyal his crew were, just to drive in that extra hurt. But there was no need to.

The security van arrived a few moments after Sephiroth radioed in through his earpiece. He was glad it had not been a more violent altercation, and… were those _tears_ in Reno’s eyes?

Once the target had been secured in the back, Sephiroth climbed into the cab with the driver, a stern-faced Turk due for retirement any day now. He and his partner were due to train the boy, along with a new recruit scouted from Costa del Sol.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the life that Reno was about to be strong-armed into. Shinra’s offer of freedom was always a mere illusion. The President’s mixture of paranoia and confident grandiosity as the de facto ruler of the planet meant for a creeping omnipresence, the media reminding citizens that Shinra was always watching. Whatever you did, whatever you said, if it went against the grain of society or could be considered anti-Shinra, you were fair game. Sephiroth even knew of a subsection of the Turks whose sole jobs were to doggedly blacken the reputations of ex-employees who had unwisely chosen to write exposés on Shinra or complain about their time at the Company on the Internet. Even if they were written as anonymously as possible.

Even though it was well after midnight, and the New Year’s celebrations ought to have stopped by now, the radio in the van was still broadcasting party tunes. He had never paid much attention to music, preferring the classical stuff favoured by the elder figures in his life, rather than the derided popular music of the day. Which may as well have been a discordant noise to him.

He had slept during the day to be perfectly on form for this particular job, and wasn’t tired in the least. He’d sweated into his coat, certainly, but it had hardly taken any energy for him to restrain the boy. The huge amount of research and paperwork now seemed like a waste of time, and when he mentioned this to the Turk driving, he just got a chuckle in return.

“Bureaucracy.”

 

* * *

 

Sephiroth had headed back to his residence, after a one hour session in the mess hall nursing a cup of coffee while he wrote his report. Subject had been apprehended with little to no use of force, and had been safely delivered to Shinra’s scouting agents. Subject had also been gravely silent this entire time, and had somehow turned even paler than he already was.

The Turks had already provided a manila envelope with the report, and he had tied the catches together before rolling it up and sending it up a postal chute for Veld to deal with.

Caffeine rarely, if ever worked its magic on Sephiroth due to his physiology. He was hardly exhausted, but it was now 4am and he was definitely in need of a nap at the very least. He cursed himself for dropping his keycard twice while getting it in the reader, and stumbled in through the door.

His apartment was a definite upgrade from barracks living. And barracks living was a definite upgrade from his room in Shinra’s Research block during his childhood. More freedom.

Funny. The older he got, the more freedom he seemed to attain. Being in the barracks meant less tests and experiments, and only the occasional prick of a needle when ordered to submit a new supply of cells or blood or whatever else Professor Hojo needed for proving his latest crackpot theory. And being in his own apartment meant he could schedule his own appointments and reschedule them, no matter how often that old coot complained.

He’d collapsed on top of his sheets for only forty five minutes before his alarm went off, and his pager started buzzing. He didn’t know how to work the damn thing, but somebody at Research was usually able to program the dates and times of appointments into it. More specifically, the appointments that Sephiroth was not allowed to skip over.

Well. Not that Hojo really had any power over him. He couldn’t send people to forcibly drag Sephiroth to appointments anymore. During his rebellious phase as a child, Sephiroth had once had to be carried into the office for a routine check-up by four army personnel, then sedated. It was a humiliating experience designed to show him the consequences of fighting back or skipping appointments, and he’d wanted to avoid it ever since. Better to just get it over with and ignore the latest intern’s attempts at small talk.

He wandered over to the kitchenette to set up the coffee machine, as futile as the idea may be. It was fifteen minutes until he was expected at the labs, the final job for whichever poor sap was working the night shift.

He downed the coffee after it had cooled a little, and headed out.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Juri Renard had been working under Professor Hojo for nearly ten years, only recently clawing her way up to a respectable position due to the Professor’s noted apathy towards women. Her family had gotten in the way of a lot of her prospects, and Hojo had never forgiven her for sacrificing her ‘promising’ (an unbelievably high compliment coming from him) PhD proposal in favour of marrying a widower with three young children. She chatted a lot about this, if only to vent, and Sephiroth let her air her grievances as she set up the needles for a simple blood test and a mako infusion for Shinra’s greatest SOLDIER.

It had been discovered at a very young age that Sephiroth couldn’t function particularly well without a supply of Mako in his bloodstream. The general symptoms were physically feeling ill, as well as a fogginess to his thoughts and dizziness that threatened to become vertigo up in the highest heights of the Shinra building. Hardly an addict’s itch, but not conducive to giving a 100% performance as a SOLDIER out in the field. Mako infusions cured the ill feeling, so Mako infusions became a twice weekly routine.

Dr. Renard continued, tapping the needle to get the air bubbles out. “Robert’s going to the Shinra Academy tomorrow, protesting James’ expulsion. That boy, honestly… It’s like he’s doing it ‘cause he refuses to acknowledge me as his mother, and it’s driving me bonkers.”

He grunted every now and again, feigning disinterest. Dr. Renard’s step-son was only a year younger than him, and had even been a playmate of Sephiroth’s during the one year he attended the exclusive Academy. 

The doctor’s tone suggested that she was looking for some advice, as opposed to simply venting. All the ‘you know?’s and sighs and long pauses suggested such. He couldn’t exactly offer any sagely wisdom on how to parent a child who was going off the rails. But he did feel somewhat irritated at James’ behaviour. He’d had _two_ mothers in his lifetime, while Sephiroth had none — he had wanted the comfort of a mother desperately as a child, and would have jumped at the chance to be raised in a proper family setting.

He relaxed a little when Dr. Renard noticed he had sat tensed over in the chair for the past few minutes while she set up equipment. “Tired?”

“You can say that again.”

It wasn’t really the right thing to say. Dr. Renard had become a mother hen since she married, constantly clucking and picking at Sephiroth’s clothes and hair to ensure he looked his best. On the rare chance that a TV camera crew could be stationed outside of the research block. “I’ll talk to Hojo, you can go back to yours and rest up.” Dr. Renard said softly, placing one hand atop Sephiroth’s.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Sephiroth couldn’t help but cringe. He wasn’t even afraid of the pathetic, hunchbacked little man with an astronomical ego — but his wrath was both protracted and mean-spirited, taking every absence to appointments as a personal insult, immediately alerting both the Director of SOLDIER, who in turn would inform both the Turks and one of the President’s aides to start keeping more of an eye on him.

“He won’t even _notice_.” Dr. Renard said, imploring. “We’ve got two new Firsts starting today, I think he’ll be somewhat preoccupied with getting them used to… well, your kind of lifestyle.”

“Two new Firsts?” Sephiroth repeated.

Dr. Renard nodded, wheeling her chair back a few feet to her desk and bringing up two new medical profiles on her computer. “Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley. Both your age, both extremely talented. Heidegger didn’t have much faith in them, to begin with, them being two country boys. But they’ve come a long way in one year.”

“Did I serve with them in Wutai?”

“Probably. They’ve been top of their ranks in Third for a while now, then they were put into probation as Seconds with the intent to promote them to First as quickly as possible. And now that’s happened. So, you’ll be getting to know them as comrades in the next few days.”

Sephiroth went quiet. It wasn’t hard to guess why that would have happened. The rank of First was an elite position that required _years_ of training, and these two had been elevated as if they were bright children who’d been allowed to skip a grade? But it was necessary that Shinra had a pool of the most excellent SOLDIERs the programme could train, in order to maintain their dominance. Not that they had much in the way of competition, but the public were less likely to revolt with the threat of First Class SOLDIERs and Turks sniffing around.

But, he was reassured that the First Class programme at least had a membership cap. If a SOLDIER was reported or presumed dead, it freed up a space in the roster, and all the staff within the upper echelons of SOLDIER would convene to decide who would be the new promotional tools and combat experts to keep the Company’s military dominance secured. This time, it had been two Thirds who were only currently Seconds to make it appear like they hadn’t been unfairly promoted.

He’d started to drift off, as Dr. Renard’s voice droned on. The Mako in his bloodstream - which normally provided some energy - was not enough to combat the fatigue that had been brought on not only by doing a Turk’s strenuous, bureaucratic work, but a dose of depression for good measure. He’d been trying for weeks to focus his attention on work, and to not feel so miserable in himself. Therapy was provided for SOLDIER operatives, no appointment necessary, but Hojo had never found it much of a priority for Sephiroth’s healthcare programme, so he’d only rarely attended. There were mandated sessions after Wutai, with the Company terrified of what a shell-shocked First would have been able to do if given no time nor counselling to adjust to life in Midgar, but he’d stopped attending after the fourth time. 

He sighed.

Dr. Renard patted his arm, to get his attention, then gestured to the door. “I’d get going now, if I were you. Hojo wakes from his crypt at 6.30am every morning, like clockwork.”

Sephiroth had to smile at that. “I’ll take my leave, if you’re done with everything.”

She nodded and went to quickly update Sephiroth’s own medical profile. “Between you and me, I’ll call in a favour I have with the Turks. Keep you off-duty for the day. Don’t think Hojo would let you get away with mere exhaustion. Now go, go.”


End file.
